Human Rights

Last month thousands of Black Lives Matter activists gathered peacefully outside the White House in Washington D.C. to protest the killing of George Floyd. They were met with unexpected force as police dispersed them with tear gas and flash bangs so that President Donald Trump could conduct a photo-op. Read More

The Cotacachi indigenous community is suing ENAMI EP, Ecuador’s national mining company, and Cornerstone Capital Resources, of Ottawa, Canada, over Río Magdalena, a proposed copper-gold mining project in Los Cedros Protected Forest in the Llurimagua area of Ecuador. Read More

The Juukan Gorge, a 46,000 year-old sacred Aboriginal site in the Pilbara region of Western Australia was blown up by Rio Tinto, the world’s second largest mining company, in a quest for iron ore, despite the fact that company executives were aware of the site’s significance to local indigenous communities. Read More

The companies that designed, manufactured, and installed cladding - a material used to wrap a building under construction - that caught fire at Grenfell Tower in London in June 2017, killing 72 people, have asked a UK public inquiry to award them immunity from prosecution, before they provide evidence. Read More

The city of Denver, Colorado, recently voted 8-4 not to renew $10.6 million in contracts with CoreCivic and Geo Group, the two largest prison contractors in the U.S. The vote was a response to local concerns over human rights abuse at for-profit prisons and undocumented migrant detention centers. Read More

Emails released under the Freedom of Information Act show that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has tapped into car license plate surveillance data gathered by Vigilant Solutions, based in Livermore, California, and the Irvine Company, a real estate business based in Newport Beach, California, despite previous denials. Read More

When Amazon shareholders convene for their annual general meeting in Seattle later this month, they will be asked to vote on whether the company should continue to sell facial recognition software to government agencies. The vote was organized by a small group of shareholders, led by nonprofit Open MIC. Read More

CoreCivic, one of the largest U.S. private prison companies, has shelved a proposal to build a detention facility for undocumented migrants in Indiana after a series of community protests. The company is hoping for a $100 million contract from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Chicago office. Read More

Saul Luciano Lliuya, a farmer who lives near Lake Palcacocha in the Peruvian Andes, has sued Rheinisch-Westfälisches Elektrizitätswerk (RWE), a major German utility company, to pay for the impact of climate change on his community. A court in Hamm, Germany, has agreed to hear the case. Read More

The Paris High Court has opened an investigation into Nexa Technologies Inc., formerly known as Amesys, for the sale of surveillance technology to Egypt that was allegedly used for torture and enforced disappearances under the authoritarian regime of president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Read More